Good morning, I think… We’ve got a lot going on, and not much of it is good. But we could be in Australia… or Pakistan… Sidney was the subject of one of the two commentaries I’ve written and why this one is both short and later than usual.

On top of the Senate Terrorism Report and the Sidney Siege and the latest round of protests and of course, the never-ended beat of killings in the Ummah (the Muslim world) (including the one at Peshwar I discuss below), we have these words of wisdom from Dick Cheney: Terrorist Threat Today ‘As Bad As It Was on 9-11’ (spoken before the Sidney and Peshwar attacks, by the way).

Well, he’s wrong: it is WORSE. Far worse. Because of his actions, and of those like him for one. Because the current Fuehrer considers killing hundreds of civilians across multiple nations with drones to be an acceptable way of waging war. Because profiling people based on nationality, religion, political opinions, and dress is considered discriminatory. Because the FedGov has used and approved and condoned the use of torture. And there is significant suspicion is that this is all BECAUSE certain people in power WANT there to be a significant and growing terrorist threat. And that is not even counting the growing threat of “home-grown” terrorism: the blue-clad and black-clad bullies and their plain-clothes comrades in particular. And all the FedGov alphabet agencies (not just FBI and NSA and BATFE and DEA and ICE, but USFS and NPS and USPS and more) which have now milked Bloody Tuesday (9-11) for all it is worth to gain power and money and control over the minutiae of American life. I don’t know whether Cheney includes such terrorists as the five-year-old Kindergarten charged with “terroristic acts” or the high school students with pocketknives or National Guard tee-shirts (with guns!!!) or grade school students with spent “ammo” casings.

On to other stories:

Is serving meals like this “terrorism” or “child abuse?” Or both? “It’s basically treebark now,” says a high school senior in Missouri, referring to the First Consort’s “healthy school meals” served nationwide. Whereas McDonald’s has the “billions served” signs, what would be appropriate for school menus would be a “billions rejected” sign. They can’t even use that old teacher-mother claim that “millions in India are starving” because most Indians or Africans couldn’t stomach this stuff any better. But the FedGov, state governments, and local schools continue to waste money on it.

Speaking of waste, and specifically government waste: NASA’s useless $349 million tower is a monument to government fraud, waste, and corruption. In June, NASA finished worked on a laboratory tower that was immediately shut down. No wonder. The rocket program it was designed for had been canceled in 2010. Now NASA will spend $700,000 a year to maintain it in disuse.

Back to terrorism. Of course, please understand, I am serious when I say that terrorism is worse today than Bloody Tuesday in September 2001. An example happened in Sidney, and another today in Peshwar. Originally reported as a death toll of 130 but now at 140+, it seems that another group of Muslims which “don’t represent all Muslims” (who are of course all peaceful) has just murdered, say what? A bunch of Muslims: children mostly, with a few teachers and staff. In Pakistan, a country where the law IS Muslim, and Muslims are a majority by far: an Islamic country. In an 8 hour assault, It was a Taliban-led attack on the school, and apparently part of the justification was that it was run by the Pakistani military. Most of the dead are due to execution style slayings of children (some as young as seven) by the Taliban assault team, which was disguised as paramilitary police. The tactics and executions are familiar from Syria and elsewhere. The attack was in Peshwar, on the famous Northwest Frontier. This points out all kinds of problems: public schools are unsafe; if the cops don’t get you, then people disguised as cops may; students and teachers were without any means of self-defense; and the attack by Islamists (Taliban or Al Qaeda or the Caliphate) comes not long after a much acclaimed offensive by Pakistan troops which claimed to have killed 1800 “insurgents” in various tribal regions like the Northwest, or Frontier, Province. Clearly the Talibani believe that “nits make lice.”

Terrorism IS real, and kills tens of thousands of people every year, maiming and wounding thousands more. In part because there are hundreds if not thousands of organized terrorist gangs, supported by dozens of different “national authorities.” Even if those WILL protect you (or pretend or claim to) from other terrorists, they will not protect you from their own terrorist organizations because they are “good guys.” That means that each and every one of us MUST understand we have responsibility for our own and our family’s defense and cannot expect any organization, “public” or “government” to come to our aid. Not once.